Telecom Companies Decide to End the Days of 3G

AT&T® has now announced that it had programs to call it a day for 3G by early 2022 in order to incorporate new standards in the industry. This decision was made public after Verizon®, its chief competitor, announced recently that it would also put an end to its 3G services in cell phones towards the conclusion of this year.

The decision to bring 3G to a permanent closure did not come as a surprise, as most of the best internet service companies had spent a huge fortune on spreading the 4G services throughout the country. The new service, also known as LTE or Long-Term Evolution, allows people to download data 10 times faster than what was possible with 3G. Furthermore, it has paved the way to the popular use of several mobile phone applications that require ample mobile bandwidth to function smoothly.

The telecom companies followed a similar course of action when there was an upgrade from the 2G to the 3G. Companies are controlled by what the public demands. Nowadays, the availability of unlimited plans allows people to stream more videos on the go than ever before. This also forced the companies to change their limits on data usage.

High Speed Internet

Upgrading to the 4G services is set to give the 4G signals some essential bandwidth that is required. It will free up certain frequencies, which can be used by the 4G services to do justice to the demands of the people. Yet transitions do not have a history of smooth procedure. Some users are always reluctant to let go of their existing plans. AT&T® even said that 11% of its postpaid users were subscribed to 3G services at the close of 2018.

Telecom executives, meanwhile, have already focused their attention to the latest engineering standards called 5G. This technology would make downloading and streaming even faster. Furthermore, it also supports multiple connections on the go, resulting in the popularity of gadgets that are even more advanced.

Note that the conclusion of 4G networks is not on the horizon though. Engineers have not yet finished drafting the 5G standards. This is expected to take a few more years to shape and be ready for common use. Besides, companies are not inclined to terminate 4G services because it is capable of functioning alongside the 5G technology, unlike the previous generations that only allowed one type of network use at a time.